According to a recent report by Indy Media, Mexican crude oil will be sold to China without using the US dollar as its trading currency. Sources inside the Mexican government refuse to disclose if they have been in secret negotiations with China over possible crude oil sales. If you’re not familiar with the term petrodollar, or why a move such as this by China, Mexico, or Russia is of grave concern, allow me to give you a few points to consider and explain the situation -
In 1975, the members of OPEC agreed to sell oil only in US dollars. This was for a variety of reasons, but chief among them was to maintain a need for US currency and maintain its reign as the global reserve. Without this in America’s backpocket, I’m sure that the Dollar would have even less value, to put it mildly.
Greenspan, in his first speech after leaving as Chairman of the Fed, said that gold prices were up because of concern about terrorism, and not because of monetary concerns or because he created too many dollars during his tenure. Gold has to be discredited and the dollar propped up. Even when the dollar comes under serious attack by market forces, the central banks and the IMF surely will do everything conceivable to soak up the dollars in hope of restoring stability. Eventually they will fail.
Most importantly, the dollar/oil relationship has to be maintained to keep the dollar as a preeminent currency. Any attack on this relationship will be forcefully challenged — as it already has been. - Ron Paul, The End of Dollar Hegemony
One such challenge was in November of 2000; Saddam Hussein ended his sales of oil in US Dollars, and instead, demanded Euros. From a business perspective, this was a no-brainer. The US Dollar was situated well below the Euro at the time. But the Powers That Be would not allow this.
In early 2001, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was involved in some of the initial administration meetings surrounding Saddam Hussein and Iraq. O’Neill expressed concern over the cabinet’s talk of how to rid themselves of Saddam and his threat to the Dollar. Shortly thereafter, the tragic events of 9/11 played out, and the administration and media tried to tie him to 9/11 and weapons of mass destruction. If you’re able to connect dots with relative ease, it is easy to see that one of the motivating factors for the Iraq war was to regain and maintain US Dollar supremacy and little to do with weapons or physical threats to the United States.
Shortly after the initial “military victory,” all Iraqi oil sales were once more carried out in US Dollars and the Euro was abandoned.
Venezuela: Coup and Countercoup, Revolution
When Hugo Chavez was elected President in 1998, the Clinton administration maintained a “wait and see” policy. Venezuela had been a faithful servant to US interests throughout the twentieth century, and despite the rhetoric of revolution spoken by President Chavez, few in Washington believed changed was imminent.
But after Chavez followed through on his first and principal campaign promise, to initiate a Constitutional Assembly and redraft the nation’s magna carta, everything began to change.
The new Constitution was written and ratified by the people of Venezuela, in an extraordinary demonstration of participatory democracy. Throughout the nation in early 1999, all Venezuelans were invited to aid in the creation of what would become one of the most advanced constitutions in the world in the area of human rights. The draft text of 350 articles, which included a chapter dedicated to indigenous peoples’ rights, along with the rights to housing, healthcare, education, nutrition, work, fair wages, equality, recreation, culture, and a redistribution of the oil industry production and profit, was ratified by national referendum towards the end of 1999 by more than 70% of voters. - GlobalResearch.ca
In 2000, Venezuela took over the presidency of OPEC, and with a goal of benefiting those countries that produced oil, as opposed to those who merely consume, Chavez’s actions turned the $7 USD a barrel oil into $25 a barrel. Washington was not happy, to say the least, but sat on the sidelines formulating a plan to oust the President of Venezuela.
After 9/11 and the military campaign in Afghanistan, President Chavez publicly declared the bombing of Afghanistan and the killing of innocent women and children as an act of terror. ”This is fighting terror with more terror,” he declared on national television. The declaration produced Washington’s first official response.
The National Endowment for Democracy, a US entity created by US Congress in 1983 and overseen by the State Department, began pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into groups within Venezuela to help consolidate an opposition movement and make plans for a coup. School of the Americas-trained Venezuelan military officers began to coordinate with their US counterparts to organize Chavez’s ouster. And the US Embassy in Caracas, with the recently arrived Ambassador Charles Shapiro, was helping to put the final touches on the coup d’etat. - GlobalResearch.ca
Shortly before the ouster, several top secret CIA briefings, uncovered through the use of a Freedom of Information Act request, detailed exactly how the coup would unravel. Once Chavez had been captured, a new President was immediately named and all that Chavez had done was condemned and reversed, much to the dismay of the Venezuelan people.
Between April 12-13, Venezuelans began pouring into the streets of Caracas, demanding a return of President Chavez and an ouster of the coup leaders. Meanwhile, the Bush administration had already issued a statement recognizing the coup government and calling on other nations to do the same.
But the coup resistance grew to millions of people, flooding the areas surrounding the presidential palace, and the presidential guard, still loyal to Chavez, moved to retake the palace. Word of the resistance reached military barracks throughout the country, and one in Maracay, outside of Caracas, acted quickly to locate and rescue Chavez and return him to the presidential palace. - GlobalResearch.ca
As one can clearly see, if any country dares to threaten US Dollar hegemony, they are placed on a terrorist list, or plans to topple the sovereign government are put into place. We see this time and time again, most recently, and most blatantly, with Libya.
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